I find it rediculous that many in this country are ready to vote for him as PM simply because he’s a trudeau.

RUEZ, I suspect if he was physically unattractive, they wouldn’t vote for him. He is the exact opposite though. Yummy!

Canadians dont vote by looks… Chretien got in..

Trudeau has not done anything to deserve even to be on the ballot for leader. He should follow in Ben Mulroneys footsteps and become a gossip columnist.

Sort of like voting for somebody simply because they are a Kennedy, Bush, Clinton, and about to be Obama …..

Sometimes a mindset gets passed down from generation to generation …. it is amazing what happens when one has a say in teaching their children and leaves behind a legacy which is worth following ……

Teach your children well ….

“Come to me with a better solution about a pipeline, don’t come to me with the cheapest one you can create.”

THAT is a reason I would vote for him ….. not that I vote in Quebec, not that I am a member of the Federal Liberal Party ….. so I will never be able to vote for him……

“Canadians dont vote by looks” .. so how did the blue eyed fellow get in?

“Trudeau has not done anything to deserve even to be on the ballot for leader”

Well, in that case he is no differnt from others who have come forward to be the dragon slayer.

Nothing like a spoiled rich kid who’s never worked a day in his life using his daddy’s money to run for public office. Reminds me of Jack Layton.

Talking to students in their ivory towers is sure a lot easier than taking on a hundred and fifty older seasoned over taxed residents of this town. Students (tax wise) don’t have a clue what they’re in for no matter who they vote for. It reminde me about Vanderzalm many many years ago. These two old ladies were interviewed on TV and one of them said, “I voted for Mr. Vanderzalm. I like the way he dresses”. That is what she said.

The last paragraph is pathetic.

“He’s dreamy”

This is why I don’t enjoy politics. I hope he loses the leadership campaign just so I’m not concerned about people voting for the Federal Liberals next election simply because “he’s dreamy”….

Maybe its time for some younger people to get in.

I know what I think of the fossils I work with.

I imagine Justin is thinking the same thing.

If the Liberals select this wannabe as their leader based on a popularity and swimsuit contest, which I believe they will, they deserve what they get.
The lad has nothing between the ears, but is an actor. Wonder how many of his dad’s film clips he studied. And don’t be surprised when that fuddle-duddle finger flip comes out.

“I find it rediculous that many in this country are ready to vote for him as PM simply because he’s a trudeau”

I find it ridiculous that people are willing to vote for someone just because they run under a Reform, Canadian Alliance, Conservative or whatever other banner they are calling themselves these days. Heck, a grouse could run under than banner in PG and win. What does that say?

Actually; I think a shrinking violet won last time.

NMG you mean grouch dont you???

With any luck at all he will not win the nomination and then we will not have to put up with his smiling face in the next election.

We have a strong Conservative Government that represents a good portion of the people in the West, and in Ontario. Harper needs a break through in Quebec, and the Eastern Provinces. If he gets that then we will have a truly representative Government in Canada.

We dont need to throw away all the gains we have made in the West just because a pretty boy decided to run. Hopefully we are smarter than that.

I’d prefer “lifelong tax paying fossils”. Thank you very much.

wowww how come no one told me he was coming to town??? Didn’t see or hear bout his coming. Yess We need more young people involved… they will eventually be looking after us in our golden years..

I think I just threw up in my mouth a little Palopu!

Why do you think the local Liberals arranged to have him spend some time at the University instead of a local Senior Complex? They are playing up the attraction card to the young people.That is where he will have the most influence. Those students don’t know who Pierre Elliot Trudeau was or how he delivered us the infamous finger as he traveled through our province on the train.

Talking to malleable non thinking minds.

…non thinking leftist minds.

I beleive he has some good intentions. He has a very respectable approach to politics and supports the many different demagrahics of people within this country.

What I see is a person that can guide the people of Canada to build this country the way it should be built.

I love this country and have been here for over 46 years. I have never been so disappointed in our current politcians that we have in power. I am somewhat ashamed with what we have become over the last few years.

It is time we change back to the respectfull country we had a long time ago.

I will be voting for this guy and his vision for Canada!

Seamutt… University students are the future. Malleable non-thinking minds? Pfft! You ever been to university?

So tell me folks, why is Trudeau’s name mud in western Canada after decades of him having been in power, yet your memories can’t even last 3 years when it comes to voting for City Councillors and Mayors?

The Harper government has lost respect for Canadians and Canadian values.

So far I like what I hear from Trudeau. I hated his dad and would never in a million years vote for Pierre, but I think Justine has a well balanced outlook and would seriously consider voting liberal for my first time if he was elected leader.

Because Trudeau was a ‘centraliser’, gus. He didn’t respect Provincial rights. BC and Alberta were treated like “goblets to be drained” by his government in Ottawa. We were to provide our resources cheap for the benefit of all Canada, but there was no reciprocal provision of cheaper manufactures from Ontario and Quebec coming back to us. We got no breaks in buying cars, or appliances, etc.

Time and again our economy here would nicely get going generating some genuine prosperity for British Columbians, only to be throttled to a halt when Trudeau overspent Federally and the Bank of Canada tightened credit to cool off inflation in Ontario and Quebec. WAC Bennett tried to charter a Bank of British Columbia with 25% of its equity held by the BC government to help keep credit liquid here during those periods, and our economy growing at a steady pace. Trudeau vetoed it. He wanted all the power held in Ottawa, to impose his vision of a socialist state on us. He cost this country dearly, and those of us who lived through that period won’t soon forget it.

We can’t blame the son for the failings of the father, but if his vision of Canada is the same as his old man’s…. ? Think I’d sooner stick with Harper, he’s done more things right than wrong, and I think he’ll be around as PM for a long time, even if young Trudeau heads the Liberals.

Thanx for the laff Gus…BINGO! ya hit a homer…

P.E.T. put Canada on the map….

What utter BS. Justin doesn’t even have a critics portfolio. His own party doesn’t trust him to be much of an expert on anything.

Justin supports Alberta and oil and gas exploration when he is in Alberta. He is against Albertans, or anybody other than Quebecois when he is in Quebec.

He wasted NO Time braying to that fat little corrupt chief…before the audit was tabled hat concluded a hundred million dollars vanished with no paper work.

He is a buffoon. As the most recent AFN debacle proved, he couldn’t get down on his knees fast enough, when a reasoned approach was called for. He and Paul Martin have assured Canadians that the Liberal Party of Canada is still looking to shill for cheap votes by taking advantage of whatever hysteria hits the MSM. Regardless of what it does to this country.

As long as drone-like Liberal supporters buy into the theory that a corrupt Liberal Party is better than a Conservative, they will never return to Government.

Socredible- You vote for Harper because Trudeau wanted ” to provide our resources cheap for the benefit of all Canada.” ?

Have a good look at the state of affairs now. Alberta is going post a huge deficit despite massive growth in the Tarsands. Alberta oil is selling at a 50% dicount to world price in the USA at an opportunity cost to Canada of over $100 million/day. And the best Harper can come up with is a cockamamie plan to pipe unrefined bitumen to China.

I guess it is easy to keep Conservatives happy, just give them unrestricted access to guns, and then they really don’t care if the country goes to hell in a handbasket.

And how is he worse than our current MPs. Neither of them live in PG and how often do they spend time in PG, especially Dick Harris. They are both yes men and do what ever they are told. When was last time they fought for anything in PG.
It is actually a good thing that a politician speaks their mind and stands by their convictions and beliefs, instead of what leaders tell them to stand do.

Nao, Yup, scary. Not an independent thinker in the bunch. They just follow the dogma like sheep.

yes, Dick Harris is an embarassment for our community.

Justin, is just a bit too smooth like his old man. All they want western Canada is to pay for the rest of the country.

Looking at the Demographics, if you miss the seniors vote. guess what. your not going to make it.

Looking at the first picture, He looks like Bert, from Seasame Street.

Herbster, providing OUR (BC and Alberta’s) resources cheap for the benefit of all Canada would be just fine if WE were getting a ‘made in Canada’ price on all the goods manufactured in eastern Canada that was cheaper than what those other provinces were exporting those same goods to the US and elsewhere for. This was NOT the case.

Petro-Canada, Trudeau’s government owned oil company, didn’t sell gasoline and other petroleum products to Canadians for any less than any of the other private oil companies did. They gouged us just as bad, all across this country.

His National Energy Program was simply a way to get his greedy little hands on BC and Alberta export resource revenues for Ottawa to fritter away on inane ‘social programs’ which really did little or no good for anyone. And still managed to get us deeper and deeper in debt, both governmental and personal.

As for the rest of your post, Herbster, about the Alberta deficit et al, what do you expect in any country that prostrates itself with an inane demand for ‘jobs’ ~ full employment ~ in priority to the modern day provision of goods and services TO ALL Canadians, which only takes a fraction, and an ever smaller fraction, too, of the whole workforce actually working? If we’re going to engage in never ending ‘make work’ projects just to provide an excuse to pay someone a wage to do something that’s otherwise completely unnecessary to do, we’re going to run up deficits. And, while Harper is doing the wrong thing trying to pump bitumen to China, those deficits would be immeasurably higher with young Trudeau in charge, trying to create a socialist nirvana. Where everyone is equal. Equally poor, and permanently kept that way. Our chances of Harper eventually seeing the light are far greater than they ever will be with Trudeau, who, like his father, craves power for power’s sake.

The NEP would have got Alberta a much better price for their oil than they are getting now. I guess Harper thinks selling our oil to the US at half price is better than building a strong Canada. And I guess you do too.

They’ll sell oil at whatever price they can get for it internationally because under the current financial set-up we have to seek export credits to make up for a shortage of “effective demand” in Canada, (the purchasing power of each Canadian dollar in terms of what it will buy in goods and services for Canadians in Canada).

NEITHER Harper nor Trudeau currently want to admit this problem. But Harper will eventually see it before Trudeau, and if he wants to retain all the good things the Conservatives have done, (and there are many, including the reduction of 2% in the GST), he will eventually have to deal with it. How he will deal with it will be likely to be of far greater benefit to all Canadians in preserving our individuality and personal freedoms of choice than the way Trudeau would.

The $100 million/day price for Harpers vision of personal freedom sounds more like cutting off ones nose to spite their face. In fact the cost to Canada is greater than that. Eastern Canada is still buying oil at Brent or world price. So add another $20 million/day to the cost of voting Conservative. If you do the math, that is 3.6 billion /month for the great privilege of having Harper as our PM (sarcasm). And yet Conservatives still whine about the $ 2 billion long gun registry.

So amongst all the natural wealth of Canada, Harper is manufacturing deficits. It is much easier to deny the demands for daycare, education, and health care when Canada runs a deficit. Cut Katimavik, and save $20 million a year, and please all those who can’t stand the idea of young Canadians volunteering to help their country.

Harper has no strategy for Canada, and that is his strategy. Harper is the biggest danger to Canadas’ future that we have ever seen.

I am having a good laugh at herb:…because after-all you would be an expert on the tarsands? Make sure you call it that too. You know? The mandatory progressive hack language, that plays well in union meetings province-wide.

Meanwhile you can return to explaining how a substitute drama teacher with no portfolio or work experience should become PM? What a waste of an education.

Bitumen is tar. Call it oilsands if you wish, it is all semantics. The sorry truth is that no one could do worse than Harper.

Wait for the massive deficit that will happen in Alberta. Even Conservatives there will have to wake up and realize that they have willingly put into office a Conservative ideology that has simultaneously bankrupted them, stole their future and their country. But they do have their long guns.

The Australians have a stronger economy than Canada. They have the type of federalism that Trudeau was trying to get into Canada with respect to “Common Wealth” and natural resources.

http://education.theage.com.au/cmspage.php?intid=135&intversion=310

From that link.

Who owns Australia’s natural resources?
Mining companies do not own Australia’s mineral resources. They are granted leases or licences to prospect, explore or mine for them. Mining companies invest large amounts of money in this process, reaping financial rewards if they are successful and paying taxes and royalties in return. THE RESOURCES, HOWEVER, ARE COLLECTIVELY OWNED BY ALL AUSTRALIAN CITIZENS. The government argues that it is responsible for ensuring that the benefits of a mining boom flow to the whole nation. Treasurer Wayne Swan recently said: ”Our resources belong to all Australians and Australians do deserve a fair share.

Is a resource tax justified?
Supporters of the tax believe that Australians are entitled to a greater share of the profits that mining companies have earned since the resources boom began a decade ago. Since 2003, the government argues, taxes collected from the mining sector have decreased significantly as a proportion of profits, resulting in an estimated $35 billion in lost revenue – money that Mr Swan argues could have been used to finance many necessary infrastructure projects.

With current tax arrangements for the mining sector described as ”unresponsive to changes in profit”, the government says a uniform 40 per cent resource tax would give the nation a fairer share – particularly given the finite nature of resources, and an increase in foreign ownership that has seen a significant flow of profits offshore.

It is not a tax …. I call it a user fee . ;-)

Trudeau was ahead of his time. If things do not change, a backlash against Alberta is quite possible, even from BC.

I do not know too many who like people who have lots of money to blow and do exactly that, blow it while much of the rest of Canada suffers.

Family members help each other …. this country is a dysfunctional family and others are taking advantage of that.

I find Bob Rae more qualified to lead that party than the rest of candidates who participated in the BC debate; although he is not a Quebec MP. But the Liberal party’s image has been damaged in Ottawa and it seems it does not have a proper mechanism to elect the most qualified for the job and it is still suffering from the rivalry between Martin vs Chretien supporters. Same thing happened in the UK between Brown and Blair supporters in the Labor party.

In BC, the liberal party has turned into a big joke and I don’t think it is fair to contrast the performance of Dick Harris in PG with MLAs like Shirley Bond. At least you can book a time with him and go talk to him.

Backlash against Alberta? What nonsense. And what form would this “backlash” take? The last time I checked you were free to move and work there if you wish. Sitting on welfare in BC and crying to share the wealth will get you nowhere.

Funny how union hacks decry the deficit in the budget in Alberta when it has been acknowledged that most of it is from fat public sector employee wages and benefits. I guess a smart liberal government would cut wages and lay-off their constituents? See Ontario for an example of an economy ruined by Liberals.

Alberta sits on the worlds largest reserves of oil. It has a massive deficit.It sells its oil for half of world price. Its’ so called Heritage Fund is worth less than 3% of Norways. Its’ only hope at the moment is an ill considered effort to pipe its raw bitumen to China. It has had a Conservative government for the last 30 years or more.

All you Conservatives must be so proud!

@ Seamutt

Did you know that if your over a certain age, you can get a pretty much free education at the university? Maybe take a philosophy, history or gender studies course to see how malleable our minds are and why that may just be the case. Then, maybe take a computer science, chemistry or international studies course to see how we “don’t think”.

In my opinion. Its far better to be open minded than to be a one track, “don’t care”, “I’m always right” cynic who can’t think for himself and feels the need to anonymously criticize those who are working to make YOUR world just a little better. You’re welcome you ungrateful mutt.

I’ll second that, littleone.

(´･ω･`)

“See Ontario for an example of an economy ruined by Liberals.”

And here I thought it was because the world economy did not buy products manufactured in Ontario … actually, make that the USA economy….

Does that remind you of the lumber situation in BC? A forest industry ruined by many different colours of government over time because they did not figure lossof massive amounts of wood into the scenario, nor the eventual result of a monopoly client.

The forest industry here does not now, nor ever has, had a ‘monopoly client’. We sold wood wherever we could get the best price for it.

The United States is one of the few countries in the world who would pay a price for the type of wood products we can produce that has traditionally been in excess of our costs of production.

Their market will take lumber manufactured from species and trees of a size that other markets will not.

To have some airy-fairy idea that the volume of 2x4s going into America can be replaced with a smaller volume of so-called ‘value-added’ products that could be sold there, or anywhere else in the world, is pure delusion.

Any product is only ‘value-added’ when it returns an amount sufficient to cover its costs plus an additional profit. If it won’t do that, NO ‘value’ has been added. Only additional cost that can’t be retrieved in price.

But this little FACT is lost on those who can’t see the difference between ‘jobs’ and ‘incomes’.

You can provide endless ‘jobs’ for everyone by simply giving them a pick and shovel and a piece of bare ground and telling them to dig a hole. And when they’re finished, fill it in again. And repeat that process ad infinitum. We do too much of the equivalent of that now, and under Trudeau would do even more.

But doing this does no good, even if you pay them ‘incomes’ for doing it. Because those incomes will be insufficient to ‘buy’ what is needed or wanted in USEFUL goods and services. Collectively prices will have risen through inflation, or incomes will be decreased through taxation to keep the ‘hole diggers’ paid. Likely both. But we’ll have ‘full-employment’, and that’s all that matters to a boob like Trudeau. He’ll be keeping his financial masters happy, and his own nest well feathered.

What utter BS. Venezuela has the world’s largest oil reserves. They just passed Saudi Arabia for that claim.( http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012 )

Why even attempt to debate if you are going to spew falsehoods? Just another whining liberal, who thinks he is the only one that can access the internet.

Only a liberal could look at the failure of the Liberal party to make in-roads within Alberta, despite the fact they have a very vibrant Liberal base in Edmonton and Calgary, as an insult to conservatives.

Styxx, do a search on Google.Wikipedia has this:

“The Athabasca oil sands or Athabasca tar sands are large deposits of bitumen or extremely heavy crude oil, located in northeastern Alberta, Canada – roughly centred on the boomtown of Fort McMurray. These oil sands, hosted in the McMurray Formation, consist of a mixture of crude bitumen (a semi-solid form of crude oil), silica sand, clay minerals, and water. The Athabasca deposit is the largest known reservoir of crude bitumen in the world and the largest of three major oil sands deposits in Alberta, along with the nearby Peace River and Cold Lake deposits.[3]

There is however, no dispute about the fact of Albertas’ deficit, the miniscule size of its Heritage Fund, the fact that it sells its oil for less than 1/2 of World price, or that the Conservatives have ruled Alberta for the last 12 elections or the last 42 years.

Way to go Conservatives!

Harper is probably the best Prime Minister that Canada has had for a very long time.

He does have one problem that the Liberals hate, and that is the fact that he is an honest man. How can the Liberals deal with honesty. They have been corrupt for so long, they have no idea what honesty is.

The Liberals were in Government for many years while oil was being exported to the US, so why is this problem (if it is a problem) hung on Harper. If anything the Liberals should take the responsibility. HA,HA,HA, we have an oxymoron *Liberal responsibility*

The Government of Canada does not own any oil, and it does not sell any oil, the oil companies will decide where this oil is sold. They have had many many years to find another market for this oil but havent done so. Why???? Because most of the Alberta oil is owned by the Americans. They can sell it South of the border cheap, and make the profits in refining it and selling it in the US/.

Does anyone really beleive that the Harper Government sets the price of oil, or decides where it will be sold?? Dont be silly.

The Keystone pipeline was just approved by the Governer of Nebraska. They have been laying pipe in Texas for over a year, and very soon now Obama will approve this line. This oil will go to the refineries in Texas. Some of the Tarsands oil will go to Vancouver on already established pipelines, and some will go to Kitimat if the line is ever built, and then will be shipped for the MOST PART to refineries in California. Some might go to China.

Just because a few newspapers reported that the tarsands oil will go to China doesnt make it so.

Herbster is backing a dead horse. The Liberals are nothing more than a bad joke.

Harper has a majority Government and needs only to build on what he has and he will get re-elected. (If he runs)

So get used to your new Government as it will probably be around for a while.

Thanks for making my point sparky. You just pointed out how you mistook ” largest known reservoir of crude bitumen in the world” for “Alberta sits on the worlds largest reserves of oil”.

You do understand the difference, right? Nice try to gloss over the FACTS.

According to Shells’ former CEO, I am right. According to IEA neither one of us is right. My main point is that the Conservatives in Alberta have squandered and wasted a great natural resource.Grow up!

Although the former CEO of Shell Canada, Clive Mather, estimated Canada’s reserves to be 2 trillion barrels (320 km3) or more, the International Energy Agency (IEA) lists Canada’s reserves as being 178 billion barrels (2.83×1010 m3).[3]

With modern unconventional oil production technology, at least 10% of these deposits, or about 170 billion barrels (27×109 m3) were considered to be economically recoverable at 2006 prices, making Canada’s total proven reserves the second largest in the world, after Saudi Arabia’s.[4] The Athabasca deposit is the only large oil sands reservoir in the world which is suitable for large-scale surface mining, although most of it can only be produced using more recently developed in-situ technology.[4]

Palopu -the Harper Government could very well determine the price of Canadian oil.Mulcair has proposed pipelines to Eastern Canada and they will happen. The benefits to Alberta and Eastern Canada will be immense. Meanwhile Harpers Northern Gateway disaster will not die, and the Conservatives are flogging this dead horse, to the detriment of themselves and the rest of Canada.

Why would we want to build pipelines to ship Alberta oil to Eastern Canada and the Maritimes when Hibernia and other under-sea Atlantic oil developments off the East Coast are coming on line?

Strange that Mulcair, whose Party is so against a short stretch of pipe crossing BC on the grounds that it’s bound to leak and ruin everything in sight, would want a pipeline five or more times as long across the whole country. With at least that much more possibility that somewhere along its length it might leak.

Socredible, for the first – to try and keep jobs in Canada. It might be hard for you to understand, but read this article in The Tyee http://thetyee.ca/News/2012/08/08/Norway-Oil-Commandments/ and realize that Canada has squandered our children’s future. Read it, and then come back with a cogent response.

As well, socredible, a pipeline to Ontario, through the Canadian Shield, is perhaps much better than one through part of the ring of fire that surrounds the Pacific Ocean. Saskatchewan, Manitoba, not a lot of earthquakes or mud slides or avalanches. Ontario sits on the Canadian Shield, the oldest and most stable rock formation on the planet.

So, better for our country, and the environment, yet you support another option. Have you, like the Harper government, been bought by SINOPEC?

That is the true tragedy here. As reported by CSIS, Canadian government officials have been bought but foreign nationals http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/government-infiltrated-by-spies-csis-boss-says/article4392618/. What are we left to conclude when we see our government refusing to work in a sane manner? Or in our national interests? Is Harper a Quisling? Only time will tell but it ‘shure smells funny’ right now.

If Justin Trudeau can interest the young in politics, then he has accomplished more in his short lifetime than any other politician alive today.

apoliticalgeek, I’m not particularly interested in “keeping ‘jobs’ in Canada” in the same sense that you socialists are always so wont to fret about. Where the ‘job’, a mere function of man, like sleep, ~ and only ever properly a ‘means’ to an ‘end’ ~ has been elevated into the status of being the most highly desired ‘end’ in itself.

This is in no ways sensible from any economic standpoint in a world that has long passed the necessity of having 100% of the available workforce fully employed to produce and deliver 100% of the goods and services each one of us requires and desires.

And one which continues to work apace at putting itself out of work through every advance in modern technology, just as it’s been doing for the last century, or more.

So far as I’m aware the good people of Norway, for all the oil and gas revenues their country has earned from their North Sea bonanza, still pay considerably more for a litre of gasoline to fill the tank of their cars than we do. And, in all likelihood, considerably more for the car, too.

I’m not aware that the length of their workday and workweek, on average, has been shortened.

They’re not down to even a six hour work day day, on average. Let alone a five or four hour one. And for all their ‘moral’ emphasis on the necessity of jobs for all, they still could not exist on earned incomes alone if work sharing made that possible.

And while their government does indeed provide them with an impressive array of ‘social services’, it is still the omnipotent bureaucracy that administers that government that decides what those services shall be, and how much each Norwegian will be allowed to have of them.

Accordingly, like us, they will likely have a socialised medical system set up to treat the ‘disease’. Rather than one to treat the ‘patient’. Fine if you happen to be suffering from the right disease. Not so good if you’re not.

And the fact remains that they still could not afford to collectively pay for all those social services AND meet their other ongoing costs of living at the same standard of living they now have, solely through the incomes they are still forced to work for. Even if BOTH were provided by their government in return for taking ALL of their incomes in taxes. Incomes of which their government already takes a larger percentage in taxes than ours do here. Despite the oil revenues.

And I’ve seen no evidence that even with the oil revenues flowing in that consumer debt levels in Norway are non-existent at best, or at least, not growing exponentially the same as they are here.

And thus it will remain so long as the focus is on making work for work’s sake. Rather than as it should be, to provide each one of us with all the goods and services we require and desire in the most efficient manner possible, right up to the limits that is physically possible or consumer demand has been satiated, whichever comes first.

To do that requires us to consider the ‘job’ and the ‘income’ as two SEPARATE things ~ which they definitely are ~ and stop thirsting after the former when it’s the latter we all really want.

Trudeau and his socialist ilk will never see that. Harper, when what he’s trying to do now fails to deliver what many of his supporters believe it will, may well come around.

Socredible, correct me where I’m wrong.

You seem to be arguing that our needs, as individuals, would be best met by a level playing field, by a truly free economy. Such a place would reduce our work week and give us more ‘goods’ for less effort.

You seem to be arguing for a lack of central management, for a sort of ‘freedom’ from government interference, or socialist interference in capitalist ventures.

Some thoughts on that.

It is generally accepted, by those who ponder such things, that the role of society is to avoid a life in nature that is ‘nasty, brutish, and short’. Hobbes wrote a great book on this very question, called Leviathan, back in the 1700’s. It is ‘the book’ on social contract theory. Great read if you value the human experience or wonder why we’re where we are. The central tenant of this book is that rather than having to live in a state where “all are at war with all”, we give up certain individual freedoms so that we may all, in general, prosper. Seems to make sense on a gut level. You and I are governed by rules that allow us both to prosper as best we can without being unfair to either.

How are the rules decided? Unfortunately we live in a democracy. One in which we have appalling levels of participation, most particularly by younger people, I know. But generally, for the benefit of the masses. I know, bread and circuses, and all that. This is undeniable. The only other option is a state of nature, wherein Olaf, who’s 6’10” and 300 lbs, makes me his servant (until I can poison him). Ridiculous.

So where does the market enter here? We’ve just agreed that the role of government is to interfere with a state of nature. A free market functions best in a state of nature, and but one which, unregulated, eventually ends up with either Wall Street meltdowns, a depression, or perhaps, as Marx worried, eventually one monopoly, or company, that owned everything. Which would then dictate to us what our roles are as we feed the ravenous beast. Which then interferes with the base reason that we entered into society.

Champions of a free market are usually those who’ve take Econ 100, or thereabouts, and stopped at that level. Experience has show us what an unfettered market can do (check Great Depression, Wall Street meltdown, Russian oligarchy, Somalian theocracy, etc). But I think that most of us that are reasonable can agree that unless you’ve been unfairly ‘gifted’ with money or intellect, state restrictions on the market are necessary.

Society can function in an oligarchy, a democracy, an aristocracy or even a theocracy. However, in a democracy, capitalism is subject to the whims of the masses.

We’re up to 450 words now so I’ll stop. If you’ve read this far, I’ll summarize or tldr.

We enter into society to provide the most people with the most. Just because you’re big and mean, or born into money, shouldn’t allow you to have more than your fair share. Government’s role is to keep life fair (giving the most to the most, if you will). Progressive taxation is a manifestation of this principle. So is democracy. Those of us that are ‘gifted’ may not like that we don’t receive the full benefits of our gifts and hire lobbyists to fight this goal.

History has proven free markets don’t work in the longer term, and thus will always need government regulation if we wish to accomplish governments role of making society fair.

Finally, in the context of my article above, Harper’s conservatives, as opposed to ‘Red’ tories, don’t agree with this, and have been bought out by oil interests. They are not managing Canadian resources for the benefit of the whole country, or even the common Albertian.

Norway is managing to do this for the benefit of their citizens.

Finally, as to the roll of socialism.

If we agree that the roll of government is to maximize the lifespan of its citizens, http://www.g8.utoronto.ca/evaluations/factsheet/factsheet_demography.html has some interesting readings. US and Russia, the most ‘non-socialist’ of the G8, have the lowest life expectancies.

Finally, check out this from the Motley Fool http://caps.fool.com/Blogs/socialist-vs-capitalist-a/330526. In the top 20 countries, as scored by the Human Development Index, 14 were socialist, 4 were capitalist, and 2 were unspecified.

Socialism rules as long as we value how long we live. No sane person can believe otherwise.

I hope I have the opportunity to respond to your two last posts more completely before this thread expires, apoliticalgeek.

Both contain issues which should be explored in greater detail than I have time for right now. I will say, briefly, before I have to be off to “earn my daily bread”, that the advantages of a ‘free market’, where individual CONSUMERS make the ultimate choice in what goods will be produced and what services will be provided for them, and by whom, (private or ‘public’ entities), only can be made to work properly if the means of transmitting their orders ~ the ‘money’ system ~ always functions toward that end. Currently, it clearly does NOT.

And it is the failure to understand and correct this problem, which is most prevalent, unfortunately, amongst those of the ‘socialist’ persuasion, that dooms their abundance of genuine concern for their fellow man ~ their ‘social conscience’, if you will ~ to a failure to meaningfully deliver on their good intentions.

Can’t wait ;)

So “thunderboltz”

Do you expect Harris & Zimmer to call you everytime they are in Prince George??? How do you know how often or not they are in their ridings??

And as far as living in PG on what basis do you think Harris doesn’t live in PG? Did he call and tell you? Or are you convinced by listening to the “dippers” who frequent this blog site and the Editor letters? or is it your Timmy coffee crowd who convinced you?

Oh by the way, I saw Harris at a meeting recently in PG, and I saw him at his office a couple months ago……oh and I forgot, I saw him shoveling snow a few days ago……mmmmmmm of course he doesn’t live here or ever come back to his riding!

Hear tell his riding is over 75,000 sq. km and he must travel and spend time in Quesnel, Williams Lake, Vanderhoof, Anaheim Lake, Horsefly, Likely, Wells, Nazko 150 Mile House…so you figure it out….if in a week away from Ottawa, just how many days does that give him in PG???

Oh and by the way…Zimmer’s riding is even BIGGER than Harris’ so how many days on a week away from Ottawa do you think He can spend in PG???

Maybe you should actually call Harris and Zimmer and see if you can ride around with them when they are away from Ottawa and back in their Ridings. By doing that…..maybe you might get a a reality check…you think???

apoliticalgeek, I’m really not trying to make the classic Econ 101 argument for a “free market economy” in the same way such an economy existed in Hong Kong, say, while it was still a British Crown Colony.

Where there was an absolute minimum of government regulation, and no real protection whatsoever for consumers, or workers, in a large number of areas we’d be accustomed to having regulated, and those regulations enforced in, here.

I don’t hold the usual fervent “free marketeer’s” belief that the complete absence of these protections would lead to cheaper prices, (which they likely would), and these cheaper prices alone would be reason enough to risk being injured on the job, or suffer from unbridled environmental degradation, or in having any certainty that some food processing company, say, wouldn’t poison you, or subject you to the chances of coming down with some food borne illness, when it tries to improve its bottom line.

It is here that I differ from those on the ‘right’ who seem to believe that industry, if left alone, would always act in a responsible manner and “do the right thing”. Not that I don’t believe most conducting industry wouldn’t LIKE to do the right thing, m

Government, even though it may be universally unpopular with the governed everywhere it exists on the planet, is a necessity.

But having said that, the functions of government, like many other functions of other things, can be and often are grossly mis-directed.

The first fundamental axiom of economics is that, “Consumer demand is the (only sane) origin of all economic activity.” This basic principle holds true whether you look at the most primitive one person Robinson Crusoe on his deserted island economy, or the most complex modern one imaginable. To put it simply, we Produce PRIMARILY to Consume. For we ALL must consume, or we die. Man may not “live by bread alone”, but without a sufficient supply of food, clothing, and shelter, his time on Earth isn’t going to be long.

It is surprising that anyone would ever try to deny this so very obvious FACT. Yet that is precisely what so many people talking about politics and economics do today. Instead of ‘Consumer demand’ being the primary requirement to be satiated, they pervert that into being the need for a ‘job’, or, alternatively, a ‘financial return’, as the primary reason instead.

And it’s just here where the ‘socialists’ start to see their prescriptions fall apart.

Why the socialists’ prescriptions, embodied in such devices as progressive taxation, and an increasing plethora of other less innocuous devices aimed at establishing some theoretical notion of ‘equality’, always end up failing is because they cannot discern the difference between ‘natural’ law and ‘man-made’ law.

They should be able to, for there is a tacit recognition of the difference in old Karl Marx’s dictum of, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” The vary fact that Marx seems to recognise that there is a DIFFERENCE in the ability of individuals lays bare the notion that all are EQUAL.

The very word ‘equality’ means, in its original sense ‘NO quality’. It is the difference, say, in reference to your second last post above, between a country having the longest lifespan statistically for its citizens, and a country having the best opportunity to improve the QUALITY of that lifestyle over however many years each citizen lives, even though that lifespan may be shorter.

When I was a kid, and adults talked about politics and economics, Sweden was often the country held up as the shining example of a land where the government has got everything right.

Not generally by the considerable Swedish ex-patriot adults who lived in the area, though, even though all of them I knew were certainly not ashamed of their ancestry either.

Rather it was other, non-Swedes who were often singing the praises of Sweden as the perfect ‘social democracy’. Much like some are wont to do with Norway now.

The Swedes were a constitutional monarchy, like us, but their king was much more invisible than the British royals we share realms with are. They were non-aligned, neutral in the Cold War politics of the post WW II era. Yet they were ready to defend their sovereignty, should any other power threaten it.

They made all their own fighter jets for their air force, submarines for their navy, and their Oerlikon and Bofors weaponry, (which they’d sell to all comers, too) was world-class.

They led the world in making ball bearings, SKF. They made at least two brands of automobiles, Saab and Volvo, and the latter manufacturer also made a range of mobile construction equipment and heavy trucks.

They made household appliances, Electrolux, and their forest industry ‘value-added’ their lumber products into IKEA furniture. Something similar to what we should be doing here, the wags always said.

And they had a Social Democratic ‘socialist’ government which provided them with all the cradle to grave ‘free’ benefits of the welfare State. (In return for around 70%, or more, of their incomes in taxes.)

Strange, I used to think, why so many Swedes receiving all these benefits in a supposed paradise like that, where the government does everything ‘right’, would ever want to come to a place like Canada? Or, in even greater numbers, to the USA? And never evince any indication in the slightest that they ever wanted to ‘move back home’.

Later, much later, some other things struck me strange, too. Things like why Volvo would’ve ever sold its car plants to Ford. And Saab to GM. And SKF, which held a virtual monopoly in the ball bearing trade was losing ground steadily to Japan and other countries’ bearing manufacturers.

Articles, like one I read in a forest industry trade magazine in the 1980’s. Where it stated the supposedly sustainable Swedish forest industry, operating in country that did everything ‘right’, had over cut their forests so bad its mills had to import saw logs from Scotland, of all places, just to keep going.

And then there were those TV documentaries, propaganda pieces like ’60 Minutes’, no doubt, where they showed the excessive problem with alcoholism Sweden was enjoying. Or not really ‘enjoying’. Seems its a huge problem there, and in some of the other Nordic social democratic paradises, too. That the youth there don’t seem to be too ‘motivated’ to DO anything, anymore. Except escape from a reality that maybe isn’t exactly to their liking, perhaps? Kind of like some First Nation’s people, only in a higher end reservation, perhaps?

For while ‘everything’ may be provided for them by the STATE, in equal measure according to their (basic) needs, of course, the downside is no one seems to be able to get too far advanced in the quest to break away from conformity.

And the same problem that besets every other industrialised nation has come to roost in Sweden, too. The Swedes can’t afford to buy ALL their own production from the total amount of wages, salaries, and dividends distributed to their citizens in the course of making that production. And if they can’t do that, then they have to export it for enough ‘money’, (international credits, actually, convertible into Swedish money), to be able to buy not only the portion of their production not exported that they CAN buy, but also any alternate imports that enter Sweden. Or, failing that, when a Saab or a Volvo car, or an Electrolux appliance, or an SKF ball bearing , or IKEA’s furniture can’t retain an export position, they SELL THE FACTORIES. In the hopes that a Ford, or a GM, might be able to retain them a share of a foreign market. To keep those export ‘dollars’ convertible to Krones coming in.

In such a scenario, ‘socialism’ becomes an unbearable detriment. Its benefits, that pooling and sharing of the ‘abilities’ of all to service the ‘needs’ of all, breaks down. For what ‘could’ have been done physically, can no longer be done ‘financially’. But will any socialist ever countenance a look at FINANCE ~ the ‘money’ system we use itself? NEVER. They’re too focused on maintaining an artificial ‘equality’ to realise that what is really needed is SUFFICIENCY. And that will never be equal amongst us all as individuals, for it isn’t in nature.